Instagram, an image sharing platform, acquired by Facebook last year, is looking for way to expand its appeal to its 200 million (and growing) community of users. First it was short-form video like vine. Now it has a whole new feature up its sleeve.

According to an anonymous source reported by GigaOm, Instagram is preparing to launch a private messaging feature for its users. According to the reports the new feature will be live before the end of this year. It would make perfect sense for Instagram to keep its userbase engaged and to attract growing community of visual sharing users.

According to another report from TechCrunch several users have been given personal Instagram.com email addresses.

Its not clear how the personal email addresses would work for Instagram users. But such a change would fall right in line with the company’s strategy to tighten its grip on existing users by offering features that keep them linked to the service wherever they go.

But take all these rumors with grain of salt as nothing is official yet.